


The Sum: Winter Ice, Spring Thaw

by Rhyo



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-12
Updated: 2012-05-12
Packaged: 2017-11-05 06:14:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhyo/pseuds/Rhyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short look at the relationship between Jim and Blair, told through Simon's eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sum: Winter Ice, Spring Thaw

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting some of my favorite TS stories, which vanished when my site died. This one is apparently from early 2004, according to my notes. This is not my favorite of the stories but I think it is my best writing. Unfortunately, if I had a beta on this, I didn't note who it was. Sorry in advance!

**Winter Ice**

  
I closed my cell phone with a snap and a snarl. Once upon a time, Sandburg had been a little afraid of me and had jumped when I told him to. He'd never said "how high, sir?" but he had at least jumped, instead of barraging me with questions when I gave him an order. So maybe calling him at the University and telling him to get his ass down here, his schedule for the rest of the day and his questions be damned, wasn't the most polite or considerate thing I could have done. But I'd had enough of Ellison's rendition of the Winter King, his searchlight-bright blue glare freezing anyone foolish enough to get with six feet of him: including me, his Captain and superior officer. Let Sandburg deal with him. There was enough sleet and ice in my day without Ellison adding to it.  
  
Ellison looked like hell and I am sure he felt worse, though I wasn't foolish enough to ask him. He'd chased the teen-aged gunman for blocks; through alleys and over fences and his shirt and coat were muddy and ripped, one of his hands banged up and bleeding. I would have admired his determination if I hadn't know some of the anger and pain, mental and physical, behind it.  
  
He stood stiffly, his hands at his side, looking every inch the military man he had been and in many ways still was. The forensics team had just arrived and were marking off the area of the main shooting site; as soon as they had the areas near the bodies done, the coroner's team would come in and remove the bodies. Jim was overseeing forensics, making sure they didn't miss the evidence that he had already spotted. I was sure they didn't appreciate it and I was also sure I'd find another complaint on my desk about it. He wasn't always tactful when he pointed out things that the teams missed.  
  
There weren't many things that could put Ellison in this closed-off mode, at least not since Sandburg paired up with him, but this situation had touched every button Ellison had: the big red ones labeled Betrayal, Guilt and Failure.  
  
By the time the coroner's teams had come and gone, packing up three grisly burdens, the short, weak winter daylight was fading and the temperature had begun to really drop. The forensics teams were searching the wider area and Ellison still stood guard, stiff and imposing. Nothing, it seemed, would make him stand down.  
  
Finally, I saw Ellison's posture loosen slightly and his head tip to the left and I knew what that meant. Sandburg was here somewhere. I couldn't see him or hear him yet, but Ellison could. Several moments passed and I felt a light touch on my arm.  
  
"Simon?" Sandburg said softly, his eyes fixed on Ellison, "what's going on?"  
  
I looked down to see my department's best -- and only -- observer, shivering in the cold beside me. It wasn't that he was underdressed for the weather: not while wearing that long, heavy coat, which I recognized by the loose mis-fit as one of Ellison's, or those two sweaters and a scarf wrapped around his neck. It was just that once the outside temperature dropped below freezing he had trouble staying warm, no matter how many layers of clothing he had on. The record-breaking cold snap this week had dropped Cascade into the low twenties and teens and the sound of Sandburg's teeth chattering had become constant background noise.  
  
"We had an incident." I was trying to keep my voice low, as though I could possibly talk softly enough that Ellison couldn't hear me. This Sentinel thing could be damned inconvenient sometimes, like when you wanted to talk about Ellison without him knowing it. "Ellison was interviewing the victims of what he thought was a simple robbery when the perps came back to finish what they started. He heard the sound of a shotgun being racked and went out front to investigate. The drive-by shooter took out a bystander in front of the building. While Jim was out there, two more perps slipped in the back and shot both witnesses. Ellison took one of them out and then chased the other one down. It was Ngyuen."  
  
"Ngyuen? Rao Ngyuen, the kid Jim sponsored for the diversion program?"  
  
"The same."  
  
"Ahhh, no, Jim," Sandburg sighed and then took a few deep, slow breaths, his exhalations hanging in the air in front of him in a frosty cloud. "Is he done here?"  
  
"Nothing but paperwork. Take your partner home, Sandburg."  
  
"Yeah," Blair said, eyeing his partner carefully. "I'll try." Ellison knew he was here and could hear us talking about him, but he stood with his back to us, studiously ignoring us.  
  
Sandburg walked toward him, greeting the forensics techs and uniforms guarding the scene by name. All of them nodded or smiled back, accepting his presence as they accepted Ellison's. Sometimes it felt like only Jim and I ever remembered that he was not a cop and did not carry a badge or a weapon.  
  
His steps slowed as he approached Ellison and he stopped just outside Ellison's carefully maintained personal perimeter. "Hey, Jim," he said softly, his tone low and soothing.  
  
Ellison flashed him a quick sideways glance. "Chief." His voice was cold, but Sandburg didn't seem to notice that particular chill.  
  
He took another step forward and Ellison shifted away slightly; he was hurting and angry but he wasn't ready to let go yet. I knew that wouldn't stop Sandburg for long, though. He wouldn't and couldn't let Jim stay like this.  
  
Sandburg cocked his head and watched the forensics technician handling one of the weapons. "TEC-9, altered to be full auto?"  
  
Ellison didn't even look at him. "You've been hanging around me too long, Chief. Now you even recognize the weapon of choice of cheap street thugs."  
  
"As many times as we've seen them lately, even I know one when I see one. I heard that security picked up one from two kids on campus this morning. Right outside Hargrove."  
  
"Outside your office?" Ellison turned to take a good look at his partner, who held up both hands, palms out, to show that he was unharmed.  
  
"Hey, man, had nothing to do with me. Two nerd freshmen with a grudge against a football player. In my day, we nerds would have gotten together and sabotaged his dorm computer display so he had black text and icons on a black background."  
  
The corner of Ellison's lips lifted in a hint of a smile. "In your day, Chief? How long ago was that?"  
  
"Right, Jim, tell me personal computers had even been invented when you were in school." Sandburg was grinning at his partner, who turned away without further comment, keeping up his intent scrutiny of the forensics techs.  
  
I scowled. If he wasn't going to let Sandburg talk him down from the mountain of misery he'd climbed up into, then I'd order him down. I'd actually taken one step forward to intervene when a small movement from Sandburg caught my eye. He held up a hand in a "stop" gesture and shook his head.  
  
One of the forensics techs saw Sandburg and hurried over. "Professor Sandburg, it's good to see you. I really appreciate the job recommendation."  
  
Sandburg turned and smiled at the lanky young man. I didn't recognize him, but I'd been through the budget wars several weeks earlier when Serena Baxter had demanded an increased staff for forensics; this must be her new budget-breaker. And, of course, he knew Sandburg.  
  
The two of them moved a few steps away for an animated conversation. Ellison watched Sandburg out of the corner of his eye and I shook my head at the pair of them. He wanted the comfort his partner offered, but he couldn't let go of his hurt and anger, couldn't reach out and ask for it. Sandburg would have to come to him: invade his personal space, get into his territory and make him let go.  
  
The forensics tech went back to his search, and Sandburg turned back to Ellison, a cheerful smile fixed firmly on his face. "Hey, why don't we head back home now. Maybe pick up dinner on the way back. Jags are on tonight, against the Lakers - ought to be just a rollover."  
  
"You should head home," Ellison said curtly. "I'm not done here yet."  
  
Sandburg shook his head. "Look, Jim, I know Ngyuen let you down, but..."  
  
"Don't, Chief," Ellison made a slicing gesture with his hand. "Just don't _handle_ me, like I'm some emotional basket case, okay?" His voice was low and angry and the two closest patrolmen took an extra step away. Sandburg took another step toward him.  
  
"I'm not 'handling' you, Jim, I'm just talking to my friend -- the one beating himself up because a kid he wanted to help made a bad choice. You gave him the chance to make a choice, to change his life." Sandburg stood in front of Ellison, one hand outstretched toward him, palm out, almost touching his chest. "That was an incredible gift, the gift of the second chance. Not many people ever get that gift and he threw it away. It's sad, it was a waste of karma all the way around, but it's not your responsibility. It's on his head, not yours."  
  
Ellison looked toward the building and the chalk outlines on the sidewalk. "Maybe giving him a second chance wasn't such a smart thing. If he'd been locked up this wouldn't have happened."  
  
"Ngyuen wasn't the only kid with a gun today. You can't second-guess fate, or make someone take the path you want them to choose. No matter how much you want it." He took another step forward and put his hand on Ellison's shoulder. "You do the best you can, Jim, and move on from there."  
  
For a long moment neither man said anything, then Ellison shrugged one shoulder -- the one Sandburg wasn't touching -- and rolled his neck as though working out tension. Sandburg stepped to his side and his hand slipped down to the middle of Ellison's back. The rigid lines of Ellison's posture relaxed some and when he turned to look down at his partner, I saw that a little of the winter had gone out of Jim's eyes, a little bit of ice had thawed.  
  
The corner of Ellison's mouth turned up when he looked at the too-large coat Sandburg wore and the layered sweaters underneath. "You're freezing."  
  
"Well, not freezing, exactly. I think I can still feel my hands. Maybe not my fingertips, though." Ellison scowled. Sandburg grinned and held up his hands, which were partly covered by the sleeves of the coat, for Ellison's inspection. "Good thing I found this warm coat on top of my backpack this morning, huh? Someone's trying to give me style pointers," Sandburg's voice took on a little edge, "or maybe someone's a little over-protective and thinks I'm not smart enough to dress warmly in freezing weather."  
  
"Over-protective?" Ellison asked. He put a hand on Sandburg's shoulder, turned him toward the truck and gave him a gentle push. "No, it must be a style hint. By the way, Chief, where _is_ your winter coat?"  
  
Sandburg's brow furrowed. "I thought it was at my office, but I checked there. I know it's not at the station or the loft. Maybe it's in my car..."  
  
"The car that's been at the mechanic's all week?" Sandburg held his hands up and shrugged.  
  
Ellison and Sandburg fell into step together, Jim slowing his naturally long-legged pace and Blair speeding his normal leisurely wander. They did it without thought, so accustomed to adjusting for each other that I doubted either of them were even aware that they did it.  
  
"Did I tell you he called me today? He thinks he's got a line on a replacement carburetor from a junkyard in Connecticut."  
  
"Surprised it's not in Stockholm and he wasn't trying to hit you up for air fare on the Concorde to get it."  
  
Sandburg snorted out a laugh and Ellison grinned a little as the simple joy in his partner's laugh washed over him. As they walked closer to me, Ellison's eyes met mine. Still ice-blue, but considerably warmer than earlier, I read the messages he was sending. Thanks for understanding him. Thanks for knowing what -- _who_ \-- he needed.  
  
I nodded back at him and Sandburg almost tripped, trying to look back and forth between us and read the messages himself. Ellison reached out to steady him and then his hand stayed there, firmly gripping his shoulder, anchoring himself and Sandburg.  
  
"Gentlemen," I said, adopting a casual tone, "I think we're done here for the night. I'll see you at the station in the morning." I waved my hand toward Ellison's truck.  
  
"Goodnight, Captain."  
  
"'Night, Simon!"  
  
I watched them walk to Ellison's truck and I realized that my role for the night was done, too. The forensics techs were packed up, the area was completely marked off with police banner tape and the store sealed. I nodded to the patrolmen on first watch, formally releasing the site to them.  
  
The night wasn't feeling as cold as it had earlier, so I unbuttoned my coat and took a deep breath of the clean air. My car was the last one left under the streetlights, and I walked to it, alone. I could head back to the office and get a start on the paperwork, or head home, build myself a fire, defrost dinner and watch a game -- the paperwork could wait until tomorrow, I decided. Ellison owed me a favor anyway, after today.  
  
  
  
 **Spring Thaw**  
  
I drove Ellison's truck to Rainier University. I'd rather have been driving my own car, cop issue and all, rather than his primitive truck, but this was the only way I could be sure he wouldn't leave without me. He sat beside me, his jaw locked down tight the entire time as he stared straight ahead: I could feel him willing me to drive faster, to hurry up and just get there.  
  
The only sound in the cab of the truck the steady _swish-thunk_ of the windshield wipers, which were losing the war against the heavy Cascade spring rain. I felt the need to say something, anything, to fill that silence. "He's okay, Jim."  
  
He turned his head away and looked out the side window and I sighed. When I'd signed up as a police captain, I thought I'd been prepared for what my job would mean. Then Ellison, the original Hard-Ass Bad Boy, came along and threw out every rule in the personnel handbook. He couldn't be reasoned with, speaking firmly to him just resulted in smirking replies and I'd finally had to resort to imitating my father, who'd been the baddest black top-kick that man's army had ever seen. Some long-ago drilled-in reflex made Ellison respond to that voice and I'd finally been able to see the man under the attitude -- the man worth all of the trouble, the man with no partner to watch his unprotected back. I'd only had one person available to be his partner -- Jack Pendergrast -- and so, with no small amount of misgivings, I'd partnered them, fully expecting it to be a temporary measure. Then Jack, with all his flaws, had touched something in Ellison. Perpetually one step ahead of an IA investigation, Jack had a kind of oily charm that greased his way through some of Ellison's outer defenses. He taught Ellison to behave with something approaching civility and Ellison taught him to walk the straight-and-narrow. It worked well, right up until the time I'd had to tell Ellison that Pendergrast was officially missing and presumed dead, but that the word from IA was that they thought he'd taken a pay-off and run. There had been fireworks with IA and Ellison had sworn never to work with anyone again. He'd said that he wasn't meant have a partner, and hadn't regularly worked with anyone after. Until Sandburg.  
  
I sighed. My stomach already hurt and this mental walk in the past just made it worse and gave me a headache on top of it. Today's disaster had started with a phone call from Dispatch, alerting me to a "situation" involving one of my men. Of course, it was Sandburg that they meant. Not technically one of my men, as he was an unpaid police observer, yet to most of the station, Sandburg "belonged" to Major Crime. Cascade was a large enough city that Dispatch personnel did not know all of the police officers by name, but I had no doubt all of them knew Sandburg, especially given how often Sandburg was on the phone with them, explaining this or that predicament that he and Jim were in the middle of.  
  
Part of every cop's life is giving someone news that they don't want to hear. Sometimes the news is about a death in the family -- there's no good way to do it, no way to soften it and make it hurt less. Sometimes it's not a death but an injury. A car accident, a mugging, a life not ended but in peril. Often that isn’t any easier to take. And the truth is, even after being the ones to give it, cops don't take bad news any better than civilians do. I knew, when I'd told Ellison, that he would over-react to Sandburg's situation. His response had been predictable: he snapped to his feet, only-half-listening to me, turning his head first one way and then the other, as though he could actually hear what was happening at Rainier, twelve miles away. I did the only thing I could: took his keys away and pointed him toward the elevator.  
  
When we finally got to Rainer, he was out of the truck and moving before I was even completely stopped. "Ellison!" I shouted after him, but he wasn't listening. One of the uniforms guarding the scene took a step toward him to stop him, but whether he recognized Ellison or recognized the expression on his face, either way, he backed off and didn't try to stop him. Smart man.  
  
Patrolmen had been stationed an the two entrances to Hargrove Hall and were denying entrance to everyone; irritated and curious students milled around and generally impeded everyone -- except Ellison, for whom the crowd parted as though he could generate a force field to move them.  
  
I sighed. It was one of those semi-creepy things that he seemed to be able to do along with all the actually useful things. But they all gave me headaches when I had to cope with them. I followed after him, tracking his progress through the parting crowds, but I lost him when I had to check with the responding officers.  
  
The story wasn't good; a Rainier student had walked into Sandburg's classroom with a weapon, pointing it at Sandburg's head. He'd let the entire classroom go, and when Rainier's -- unarmed -- campus security had shown up, had demanded to talk to a Cascade PD officer. When the patrolmen had arrived, the student had moved around Sandburg, to his side, shouting threats, and raised his weapon. Both officers had fired at close range, four shots each.  
  
"Death by cop?" I'd asked, and they'd both agreed: the student had put them in a position where they believed Sandburg's life -- and their own lives -- had been at risk and they had to shoot to kill. I could only imagine how Sandburg was taking it.  
  
Although the shooting had occurred in Rainier's largest lecture hall, they directed me to a small classroom directly across the way, where they'd escorted Sandburg until Ellison and I could arrive on scene. I'd seen the coroner's van parked outside so I knew they must still be working on site, so I headed in to check on my men.  
  
Sandburg was pacing, his shoulders defensively hunched in. Five steps took him across the raised speaker's podium and then he'd turn and go the other way. He was covered in blood, and Ellison was trying to get him to stand still so he could make sure he wasn't hurt, but Sandburg wasn't having any of that.  
  
He skittered out of Ellison's reach, holding up both hands to block him. "No, I'm okay, Jim. None of this... this..." He looked down at his arms and chest and belly and his voice cracked. "None of this is mine. It was all his, man, all of it."  
  
"Chief---" Ellison said and took a step toward him, but Sandburg backed away.  
  
"I couldn't stop him, Jim, but I tried, you know? It was like he _wanted_ them to shoot him." He didn't stop moving, kept up the pattern of his pacing. "I tried to stop him."  
  
Watching Sandburg pace was like watching the one of the rivers in the Cascade Range run high in spring flood. It was only water, but it was unstoppable. Ellison watched him carefully, staying between Sandburg and the door at all times. I wasn't sure if it was to keep Sandburg from seeing the coroner at work or to keep him from bolting. Probably both.  
  
"Are you okay, Blair," I asked softly.  
  
His attention snapped over to me. His eyes were a little wild. I could see a streak of blood on his face and in his hair from where he'd been running his hands. "Me?" Sandburg gestured, his voice raising in pitch just a notch. "Yeah, Simon, I'm just fine. Not a scratch on me. This is all just a couple of gallons of someone else's blood." He looked down at his hands and shuddered.  
  
The patrolmen had told me that Sandburg had tried CPR and first aid, but they'd known it was hopeless. "Did he tell you what this was about?"  
  
Sandburg nodded, running one hand across his forehead and leaving another small streak of blood behind. "His name is... was...Dan Blackmer. His older brother Mark was one of my students last year. Good kid, sorta struggled a little. Came to Rainier on a football scholarship but pulled a ligament and got cut from them team and lost his scholarship. I knew he'd left school, but..." Sandburg trailed off, and paced the length of the podium again.  
  
"But," I prodded. Ellison shot me a look, which I ignored.  
  
"Dan said that he got into trouble. Drugs, mostly. Two weeks ago he got caught up in the big bust down in Tacoma, and he was killed by the cops---ah, God!" he said, slapping one hand on the lectern. "Jim, he used me. He knew what would happen, and he used me, he used my relationship with you and the entire Cascade PD. I didn't put it together fast enough, I couldn't see why he was here..."  
  
I could see by Ellison's face that he'd already figured it out and had been hoping Sandburg wouldn't.  
  
"He wanted to die," Sandburg said, looking up at Ellison for confirmation.  
  
"Yeah," Ellison said, gently, kindly. "Death by cop. It happens."  
  
"And he used me to do it." Sandburg pushed the lectern into the wall and it clattered to the floor. He started pacing again. "I don't know which is worse, that someone used me as a weapon or as a helpless pawn, just played me, yet again. I am so fucking sick of this."  
  
Ellison flinched as if struck. It could be a sore point for Ellison, the trouble that Sandburg, an untrained civilian, got into working with him, and I think the fact that Sandburg kept coming back for more was as much of a mystery to Ellison as it was the rest of the station.  
  
"What is it? Do I have a target painted on me? I show up at the PD to sign some forms and it gets taken over by terrorists." He reached the end of the room and turned to pace back the other way, his hands illustrating his points. "I take a figurine in for an appraisal and get stuck in an elevator with a bomb. I have you come in as a guest lecturer for my class and we get attacked by a rogue CIA agent. I get stuck mentoring a genius student and I get attacked by giant mutant spiders. It's all just a little too ridiculous, you know?"  
  
Watching him intently, Ellison made no effort to halt the torrent of words; instead he seemed to be... waiting. Ellison tracked him as he paced another lap of the podium, watching his movements, his hands, whatever else it was that he used to monitor Sandburg.  
  
"And now," Sandburg said, his voice cracking, "now my classroom is used as a convenient place to commit suicide. I just... I don't..." He looked up at Ellison, his eyes bright. "I _can't_."  
  
Sandburg was full of words; he used them as shield and a weapon, but it took plain, direct words or actions to reach him, and Ellison could do that better than anyone. Ellison stepped into his path and it was like a switch flipped inside Sandburg. With an angry, incoherent sound, he stopped and dropped his forehead on the edge of Ellison's shoulder. They stood together, barely touching. Sandburg sighed once, deeply, and his body calmed, the internal spring that had kept him going slowly unwinding as he took comfort in Ellison's solid, still presence.  
  
With each deep breath Sandburg took, I watched Ellison match him, breath for breath, and calm down himself, taking comfort from being able to _be_ Sandburg's comfort.  
  
"Simon," Ellison said softly. "There's a gym bag in my truck, behind the seat, with a clean shirt in it. Could you get it?"  
  
Being senior ranking officer on the scene, I could have delegated the task to anyone -- but Jim was asking a favor of a friend here, not his commanding officer. I went back to his truck.  
  
When I got back with the bag, Blair was sitting on the riser, his head on his knees, and Jim was squatted down next to him, one hand on his shoulder. Jim opened the bag and laid out a fresh shirt and towel and then started to unbutton shirt. By the time Jim got him out of the bloody shirt and wiped off with a towel he was shaking.  
  
Jim held out the clean shirt. "Hey, buddy," he said, his voice no louder than a faint whisper, "c'mon, help me out here. That arm goes here, this arm goes there---"  
  
Blair laughed, a weak, washed-out sound. "Yeah, yeah," he said, pulling the shirt on the rest of the way. "I can dress myself." He stood up, buttoning the shirt.  
  
Jim reached out a hand to steady him. "You all right?"  
  
"Jim, I am so far from all right, I can't even see it from here." He closed his eyes again when Jim touched his shoulder and he leaned into the firm grip. "But we'll get there."  
  
Nodding, Jim wrapped one arm around his shoulder. "I know we will, Chief."


End file.
